


like we dreamed as boys

by garden of succulents (staranise)



Series: the happy stable Pimbits AU [2]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Established Relationship, Locker Room Sex, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 16:53:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9771767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/garden%20of%20succulents
Summary: Locker room blowjobs, and other long-deferred dreams





	

Some dreams take so long to come back home that they feel like strangers when they do. And then you look at their faces, deep in their eyes, and you _know_ –you remember them, from all those years ago. You’d know them anywhere.

Kent’s had minor earthquakes of recognition all season; the ache of missing the Aces is offset by the thing that happens when he pulls on Falconers blue and Jack is there, on the opposite side of the dressing room, lacing up his skates and looking at him with blue eyes so dark they’re oceans, and reality hits him like a wave pushing at his chest: _We’re real. This is us._

After all the years Kent played without him, it feels like the reality should be different, less. The pleasure should have gone out of playing with him; it shouldn’t feel as amazing, as monumental, as it does. Surely by now he should have stopped feeling uniquely blessed, finally given something good. If nothing else, the years of pain and the agonizing negotiations that brought them there should have lessened this thing beneath him, the bright singing light in Kent’s heart dulled with a patina of age and the reality that the world wasn’t as _good_  as he’d thought it could be, but–

He’s had a really funny relationship with the word _redemption_  recently.

Jack sits beside him as he takes his time in the locker room after the game, because maybe he’s not ready to go back to the house right now. The amount of life there, the complexity–cat, dog, shared boyfriend, trash collection schedule, yardwork, conversations–is too much for him to handle right now. The complexity of his shirt’s cuff buttons is too much for him to handle right now. And Jack gets the captain’s prerogative to sit next to him and wave the other guys off with, “Nah, you go, I think me and Parse are gonna talk.”  His hand, warm and sure, rubs up and down Kent’s back. And it’s–

“You did good out there tonight,” Jack says, like someone who cares, and–

A less fucked up person would be out the door already, home with all possible speed, because he didn’t just do _good,_  he did _amazing._ They both did, the ice almost smoking between them, the primal physical thrill of excellence and mastery and being _alive_  so overwhelming–and then he met Jack’s eyes, and the intensity in his face meant: _You’re getting lucky tonight._ He’d spent so long teaching himself how not to make it sexual, and now–

Kent turns and presses his face blindly into Jack’s shoulder, because he wants to hide. Jack lifts his face by the chin and kisses him, an unexpected form of shelter.

Once, when he was young–

There’s a lot that he has learned, about the line between _privacy_  and _shame._  About the need for solitude and the fear of being seen. About the nourishment and vitality that comes from seeing someone seeing you back.

Once when he was young, at the cost of his sanity, Kent took the part of himself that dreamed of this and cast him out into the desert; he cut him off, punished him, denied him like a cruel stranger. And he was ashamed again, as he’d been ashamed before, of being the person who mixed sex and hockey; of wanting approval and needing praise, and knowing how to be loved.

He hopes to hell word got around and no one walks in right now, because he’s having a bit of a private moment when Jack Zimmermann sinks to his knees on the dressing room floor and puts his mouth on Kent’s dick in congratulations.

Kent keens, his hand buried in the softness of Jack’s hair, and looks his old dream in the face, downswept lashes and the top of his head, hungry heart and obscene content, and he–

There was a part of him, callow youth, teenage boy, that wanted this, _exactly_  this, as filled with pornographic lust as he could make it, and he can’t believe that after years of telling himself that life doesn’t work that way and you have to learn to want things that are more acceptable, he’s… getting it.

Because Jack knew he was so afraid of going home that he needed to space his happiness out into small doses, a trail of breadcrumbs one at a time: this will make it easier for him to walk to their car, to survive the drive home with their fingers laced, to greet with joy the third man waiting for them.

Because he did well tonight. Because Jack loves him.

 _Oh, my child,_  Kent thinks towards that old dream, whose face has changed but is still instantly recognizable; to himself, to the boy who _wanted_  too much, who thought there might be a time and a place and a person with whom he didn’t need to feel self-hatred and shame.

When Jack gets off his knees again Kent is slumped against his stall, panting, tears in his eyes; Jack looks at him curiously, holds out a hand to help him stand.

“I’m guessing I should do that again sometime,” is all he says.

“You know what,” Kent says, swaying on his feet, after he gives Jack a peck on the lips, “I think I could stand it. If you wanted.”

Jack makes a little _hmm_  noise that means he knows just how deep a sign of approval from Kent that was, and squeezes his hand.

“Let’s go home,” Kent says, and they do.


End file.
